“Not at first. I let out some of my anger on her and then I got to the interrogation part. It took a lot of convincing for her to tell me what you all were up to at JJ’s office yesterday. She told me everything, of course, and when she outlived her usefulness, I shot her with this—” She pulled out a handgun from the pocket of her tan wide-leg slacks and set it on the desk.
It was then that I realized what she had been pushing into my back at the fair. More tears slipped from my eyes.
“It’s not like I could let her go.” She took another sip from the bottle. “Everything is all fucked. What does it matter if she dies?” she slurred, and clumsily set the bottle down on the desk next to the gun. “Anyway, I want the money Sullivan gave you. Prudence didn’t know how much you got, but I’m sure it will be enough for me to live comfortably in another country.” Mother grabbed the top of the laptop and scooted it closer to me. “You’re going to transfer it all to my account.”
As soon as I did that, she’d kill me. “Money is really all you care about.”
She let out a frustrated noise. “Of course it is! I spread my legs for Noah for years! And for what? All you had to do was be born and he gave you everything. You weren’t even his! You didn’t even look like him. Or me. You look like Abraham. Your real father. The best fuck of my life.” She said that last part with a faraway voice, like she was looking back on a fond memory.
I had to cringe. I did not want to hear about them being together.
“But he had nothing. Was nothing,” she continued, annoyance seeping back into her voice as she focused on the present. “How did you find out about him? Did Abraham approach you?”
So Prue hadn’t told her everything. I shook my head. “Father wrote me a letter saying he knew I wasn’t his before you killed him. JJ mailed it to me when I turned eighteen.”
“Even from the grave, that man is still fucking me,” she seethed. “No one is on my side. No one is doing what they are supposed to. Except Clay.” She scooped up her gin bottle. “Only him, and you and Abraham took him from me!” She threw the bottle against the wall, shattering it.
“If you didn’t know I knew about Bram, how did you know to send Clay to his house?” I questioned, trying to distract her from her drunken rage.
She huffed a laugh and stared at me like I was still the most pathetic person in the world to her. “When you ran away, I told your school to inform me if you showed up. They told me about the textbook you bought and had another student pick up for you. I asked how you paid for a textbook when I knew you hadn’t spent any money. I still had access to your bank accounts then and there was zero activity. After some persuasion, they gave me the name on the credit card you’d used, and I knew exactly where you were.”
“And you sent Clay because you were too scared to face Bram yourself?”
Rage molded her expression and she slapped me again. Her hit was sloppy and ended up being more of a scratch across my face with her nails. “Enough talking! Transfer the money.”
I jiggled my hand and the cuffs around them. “How am I supposed to do that?”
She let out another frustrated noise and reached into her bra to pull out a little key.
As she went to unlock my left hand, I said, “I’m right-handed.” I was grasping at anything to delay her. “Unless you’re okay with me taking a while or possibly messing up.”
She looked pissed, but reached across me to unlock my right hand instead. As soon as my right hand was free, I yanked her long flat-ironed hair as hard as I could. She yelped as she fell forward into my lap. Had she not been drinking, I didn’t think I would have been able to do that.
For a second as she tried to push herself up off me, I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t have another hand to help. All I could do was use another part of me. I swung my head forward, slamming my forehead into the side of her face hard. It hurt, but not as much as it seemed to hurt her. Mother cried out as she crumpled to the floor.
I quickly stood, pushing the chair back, and reached for the gun. I scooped it up and had it pointed at her fumbling drunk ass as she struggled to get up.
She didn’t notice until she was on her knees. She saw the gun and started laughing. “You going to shoot me?You?” She laughed some more as she tried to get to her feet.
Pulling the chair with me, I backed up. I tried to not look down too much as I stepped over Prue’s body.
Mother finally stood. “You won’t shoot me. I’m your mother, Charlotte.”
“You say that like it means something,” I snapped as I lifted the chair over Prue. “You may have given birth to me, but you hold no room in my heart. Just like I hold no room in yours.”
She stepped toward me, intoxicated and not giving a fuck. “You don’t have it in you. You’re weak. You have been your whole life.”
“I wasn’t weak,” I snapped.
She laughed as she continued to follow me. “Then shoot me.” She held her hands up. “Prove me wrong.”
I really didn’t want to. I didn’t want to live with the aftermath. So I continued to back up as she kept walking toward me.
“Shoot me!” she yelled with a deranged smile.
I have to do it.
I have to.
